Meaning.

The words on this page mean things. They are intended to refer to other things.

That is correct, you don't know what semantic content is.

"I still don't know what makes you so sure conciousness is impossible on an emulator."

For the same reason that I know simulated fire will not burn anything. In order for us to create an artificial mind, which certainly must be possible, we must duplicate the causal relations that exist in real consciousnesses.

Let us imagine that you go to your doctor and he says, "You're heart is shot. We need to replace it. Lucky for you we have miniature super computer we can stick into your chest that can simulate the pumping action of a real heart down to the atomic level. Every atom, every material, every gasket of a real pump is precisely emulated to an arbitrary degree of accuracy."

"Sign here."

Do you sign the consent form?

Simulation is not duplication. In order to duplicate the causal effects of real world processes it is not enough to represent them in symbolic notation. Which is all a program is. To duplicate the action of a lever on a mass it is not enough to represent that action to yourself on paper or in a computer. You have to actually build a physical lever in the physical world.

In order to duplicate conscious minds, which certainly must be due to the activity of real brains, you must duplicate those causal relations that allow real brains to give rise to the real world physical phenomenon we call consciousness. A representation of a brain is no more a real brain than a representation of a pump will ever pump a single drop of fluid.

None of this means we might not someday build an artificial brain that gives rise to an artificial conscious mind. But it won't be done on a von Neuman machine. It will be done by creating real world objects that have the same causal functions that real world neurons or other structures in real brains do.

How could it be any other way?